North Korea: A State-Sponsor of Terror?

News broke recently that the Trump Administration has re-added North Korea to the list of state-sponsors of terror; the Hermit Kingdom had been removed from the list in 2008 by President Bush. It is unlikely that North Korea will be directly impacted by the designation. The country is already facing heavy sanctions. Secretary of State Tillerson has acknowledged this fact but stated that the designation would discourage other nations from engaging in trade with the country. The move is likely to see widespread support in Japan and South Korea. While this designation may serve as an easy method to discourage other nations from trading with North Korea, it does arise questions as to whether or not the Kim regime actually supports terrorism.
The main justification for the designation is believe to be the assassination of Kim Jong Un's half brother in Malaysia. While the act was certainly an affront to international norms, it is hard to define what was clearly Kim Jong Un purging a potential political rival as being an act of terror. In addition, this was the only incident that was directly cited by the President when he made his decision. While North Korea's nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile testing are clearly belligerent actions in violation of international law, they are not doing this to aid a terrorist organization. While nations on the list like Iran are actively funding terrorist groups around the world, North Korea has taken no such actions. This makes the designation rather dubious.
While designating North Korea as a state-sponsor of terror is likely to have only a minor impact on that issue, it could cause a major problem for U.S. efforts to fight terrorism elsewhere in the future. The only reason the U.S. has designated North Korea as a state-sponsor of terrorism is to try to gain leverage on the country; by putting it on the list even though it does not actually sponsor terror groups, the impact of the designation could be weakened. If the world views the U.S. list of terror sponsors just being a list of nation's that the U.S. has disagreements with, it loses all effectiveness in aided in its intended purpose: identifying and punishing nations that sponsor terror groups.